I realized yesterday that I’m running crazy and not finding time to do a lot of the stuff I used to be pretty good at when it comes to keeping in touch with people. Then I realized that the reason for this is the fact that all of a sudden I seem to be doing a lot more living. I suddenly have a life.

This has been kinda happening over the last several months but it feels fully manifest recently as work has once again escalated to a ridiculous level and I’m finding myself annoyed because it’s actually getting in the way of my life. When you don’t have a life it’s easier to absorb longer hours and days of project fire drills without being resentful.

And a lot of my life still revolves around work since many of the most significant people in it are co-workers. I enjoy the heck out of my work friends but sometimes we talk about, well, work.

But I also have good friends outside of work these days and that is an added layer of social complexity for me. And it is occasionally challenging when the streams cross and some of us find ourselves boring other people to tears with work talk. We’re working on it.

And I’m seeing someone.

Bacon asked me when that revelation was going to make the blog so there it is. Ellen makes me laugh. And she’s smart and clever and calls me on my crap. All that stuff everyone says I need from a lady friend (lol). So that’s fun and goofy and, yeah. Personal.

The point of this started out being about the fact that I’m kinda funky about compartmentalizing the people in my life into social boxes. I think I’ve always done this. I keep work friends separate from school friends separate from family seperate from dates separate from non-work friends, etc. My mother used to joke about having a party with all of my different friend sets in one room and how weird that would be.

And it’s not because they wouldn’t all get along and have a ball, though maybe some of them wouldn’t. But let’s face it, I did that. That was my wedding. And it was a brilliant event and a ton of fun. Regardless of where things are today.

It’s more because I don’t do so hot with divided attention. I feel like I have intense one-on-one relationships with people. Put three of them in a room at the same time and I have no idea how to give all three of them my attention. I can multi-task like a mad woman at work but I can’t multi-task people. Especially people who arent’ automatically comfortable with each other. This is possibly a function of introversion or maybe it’s just because I’m weird. Who knows.

Jeff and Tommy can sit and talk about work at happy hour while BaconJ and Karin and I blab on and on about asthma or Will’s upcoming visit or Karin’s work/life dilemma, etc.

But if I’m going to see my sister for the first time in a month, I don’t want to also have Bacon or Grandma or whoever else there too. But Bacon and my sister like each other so maybe they’d like to visit! And I’m all, fine! Get together without me then.

And yet, there are people, important people, who still haven’t met my friend OSUJenn or my sister. There are combinations of people I’ve simply never managed to make happen. I am slow.

So yeah, it’s about me getting and giving attention and energy and space and all of that. Sometimes I feel like I’m juggling it all fine and other times I think balls are all over the place. The crazier things get at work, the more likely I am to feel like I’m not doing a great job keeping up. I told Shannon to put a phone call on my Outlook calendar for pete’s sake.

And in the midst of it all, I overslept on Wednesday and didn’t get in to work until 10. That is a sure sign that I am not juggling well. Because even though I accidentally knocked the volume off on the alarm clock when I hit snooze, typically I wake up by 8 regardless of the clock. 9:30 was a shock.

So. Love to you all. I’m losing my mind. But suddenly I have a life. And eventually I’ll figure out how to juggle all these new pieces.

Things are good. Things might even be a little bit great.